We're being sent the bill for the euro crisis again – this time by the IMF

First it was individual banks; then whole industries; then entire countries; now it's the world. Western leaders have reacted to the failure of each bailout by decreeing a bigger one. Unable to admit their mistake, slaves to the defunct economist whose thinking dominates our economics faculties and central banks, they act like so many Nick Leesons, doubling and doubling their liabilities. First, the sums exceeded the capacity of any national treasury. Then they outgrew the continental resources of the EU, whose rescue fund has just been downgraded. Now the bailout-and-borrow mania has gone global, with the IMF looking for a trillion-dollar bailout capacity.

Right from the start, I said this would happen. Bailouts take on a momentum of their own. Think of it as economic version of St Augustine's teaching on sin: each step in the wrong direction makes the next one easier. Or, if you prefer, remember of the last time you gave something up: smoking or coffee or computer games or whatever. You'll have noticed that you can't very well have the odd cigarette while remaining a non-smoker: one puff leads to another.

So far, so predictable. What astonishes me is the claim by ministers that these higher IMF contributions are needed for some purpose other than to bail out the euro. What possible alternative scenario is there? A sudden recession in Sweden? In Canada? It's hardly as if we weren't warned: even before she was appointed, Christine Lagarde had made clear that she would pay any priceto sustain the single currency.

What's the alternative? Well, the alternative to jumping out of a third-storey window is not jumping out of a third-storey window. Britain has no business trying to playdoh the euro together. If the 17 member governments care more about monetary union than about their people's prosperity, that's their prerogative. We, though, should not pay for the privilege of bankrupting our trading partners.